Ingredient Spotlight

It’s planting season! With the temperature heating up, I’ve been in my garden, busy planting! I live in the bay area mountains and so I’m blessed to have many visitors while I’m gardening. This past weekend, I spotted 2 turkeys, a beautiful fox, a family of bunnies, a pair of wild boars and a humming bird with a vibrant turquoise chest and a bright fuchsia neck sucking the nectar from my camellia flowers. Here are a few of my favorite plants you can find in my organic garden.

I have always loved planting lavender. Luckily, I was gifted with organic French lavender from the same farm in Provence where we get the lavender for 100% Pure formulas. After the lavender buds start to look a little dry, I cut them off and put the lavender buds in a muslin bag and tie with a pretty velvet pink ribbon to make lavender sachets, eye masks and heat pads (just heat for few seconds in the microwave and apply on your sore muscles). I always keep lavender sachets inside my pillow cases, in my lingerie drawer and I often put lavender sachets in the dryer after washing my clothes.

I could never plant enough tomatoes because I have so many uses for them. When I get sunburned or whenever my skin feels under the weather, I grind up tomatoes in my blender and use the fresh tomato paste as a facial mask. The healing lycopene heals sun damage and deeply nourishes your skin.

I plant every type of mint I can find. This year, I’m planting peppermint, spearmint, orange mint, cat mint, bergamot, lemon balm, apple mint, chocolate mint, pineapple mint, ginger mint, water mint, pennyroyal mint and asian mint. Every day, I pick fresh mints and stuff as much as I can fit in my clear glass mug and fill it with either hot or cold water and I sip mint water all day long as it’s very soothing for my tummy and helps with digestion.

Planting strawberries are a challenge since most berries get eaten by bugs before they’re ripe. One trick I’ve found helpful is to mix some chili oil / chili pepper and some water in a sprayer and mist the berries once a week. The spiciness keeps the bugs away. I learned this tip from a farmer that grows our berries for our fruit pigmented makeup. Since we don’t accept fruits with chemical pesticides, the farmers use chili to keep bugs away.

I have citrus orchard in my garden with every type of citrus you can imagine. Citrus is so versatile. One of my favorite things to do is to take a citrus bath. I cut citrus slices (rounds) and fill my hot bath and not only does the bath water smell heavenly but all the citrus brightens my whole body!